Just Shut Up and Die!

Death hurts. Sometimes it burns like a wildfire: Pancreatic cancer devours a body. Sometimes death flickers like a candle flame: the slow suicide of one enslaved to addiction. At other times it is a dull glow: heartache and shame. Hurt and pain, heartbreak and rage are smoke signals that death is about to overtake us. And when death comes, our one desire is to make an escape. We become liked frightened animals. We want safety, comfort, and certainty.

We seek rescue from the threat, not just the reality of death. Whatever promises to keep us safe from death we will worship it, subscribe to it, swallow it, and empty our bank account for it. Why wouldn’t we? Who enjoys pain and hurt? Who gets excited to buy a cemetery plot? Who hopes to bury her baby’s body, say goodbye to the woman he’s lain next to in bed for 46 years, or place a lily on the coffin of the father who preached the resurrection to her?

When death stalks us what are we to do? First, we need to admit that we deserve it. We serve sin. Sin curves us in on ourselves. It turns us away from God. Sin is why we die. “The wages of sin is death,” writes St. Paul (Romans 6:23). Is there anyone who doesn’t die? So we are all slaves to sin. We are all preoccupied with ourselves and ignorant of God. We have turned our back on the source of our life. We deserve to die.

This points to the bigger picture, too. Death isn’t a dumb beast, blinded by hunger, who drags down and tears apart anyone he catches. He is a servant of God. God’s furious anger toward the power of sin is poured out through death. Death comes to devour sin—to kill it. When death comes and sees that we are under the power of sin, and that sin rules in our bodies, he consumes us to put an end to sin. We are seduced by sin’s false promise: that we can be spared from pain and hurt and death, if we just…

Maybe we ought to take Job’s wife’s advice, to “curse God and die.” What hope is there for us against a power that can be seen, smelled, tasted, and touched, but cannot be stopped? The simple answer is that there is no hope for us. We are ruined. There is no escape for us from heartache and shame, heartbreak and rage. We are slaves to a power we don’t even understand: the power of sin. Worst of all, God, it seems, has turned a deaf ear to our cries for help. Is it any wonder that so many choose to kill themselves rather than suffer one more day of pain? When even God is silent, what hope of relief is there for anyone? None that is permanent. We are slaves to sin. Trapped inside ourselves. Incurable. There is no future for us, except to just shut up and die.

Its grim stuff. Harsh. Vulgar even. That is the truth about us. Even Christians are not spared this grief. Christians have bodies. Sin rules in our bodies. As a consequence of sin, Christians die. Christians are buried. But Christians are buried with Christ. We are also resurrected with Christ. As St. Paul proclaims, “We were therefore buried with Christ by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too may walk in the newness of life” (Romans 6:4). For Christians, physical death is the little “d” death of the body. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the death of death. He is our Life. Baptized into Christ, we die and are raised. This we call the “new creation,” “regeneration,” and “spiritual birth.” There is an actual death of sinners and an actual resurrection of new creations. “Behold, I am making all things new,” Jesus says in Revelation 21. And He does it to us in the waters of Baptism.

So daily we die like all sinners. But daily we are raised by God to new life in Christ with all Christians. We are reborn every day in Christ. This is the Christian’s sure consolation when pain and hurt, heartache and shame threaten to overcome us. Now, instead of staring at ourselves, at our sin and guilt, wondering when death will overtake us, we stare at Christ crucified for us. On Him hangs all our sin. He suffers the furious anger of God toward sin. He dies, forsaken by God in our place. Death comes to devour us, but He offers His body to it instead. What He’s done for us frees us from sin and death and gives us His righteousness and life as our own. That’s the blessed exchange that happens when a sinner is baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

When a drunk driver kills our son, baptism is our refuge. When a loveless marriage disintegrates, baptism draws husband and wife outside themselves to God’s baptismal promises. God’s Word and the water bathe the unsettled mind of a mentally ill woman with peace and comfort. Restless hearts full of pain and troubled minds and diseased flesh are embraced from the font to the grave by Baptism. This is where Christians may find rest in all our troubles, even when death overtakes us. As Martin Luther writes in one of his pastoral letters, “Jesus Christ… will never waver or fail us, nor allow us to sink and perish, because he is the Savior and he is called the Savior of all poor sinners, of all who face tribulation and death, of all who rely on him and call on his name.”

To be baptized means we are washed in the blood of Christ. Christ comes not only in the water but with water and blood. He is, Luther writes, “always wanting to mingle his blood in the baptism in order that we may see in it the innocent, rosy-red blood of Christ.” To be baptized then is to be washed and made new by the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are baptized into His atoning death. This is our consolation and sure hope. Baptism forgives our sins, rescues us from spiritual death, and makes us sure that God is pleased with us.

Now when death comes we trust that sin is put to death, that we are put to death, but that in death we are sunk into our Baptism. When death rages like a wildfire we trust that the waters of Baptism will quench its fury. When death hurts and pains us we look to the Cross of Jesus. The pain and hurt are His, which He gladly suffers for us. And there on the Cross we see revealed to us that until we are dead and buried in the ground, until we turn to dust, the dying and drowning of sin is not yet complete. It will be then when we are ready to be resurrected by God’s Spirit to eternal life—whole and complete in Christ.

Rev. Donavon L. Riley is the pastor of St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Webster, Minnesota. He is also the online content manager for Higher Things. You can contact him at elleon713@gmail.com.